The Prince William Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to seek the whereabouts of an estimated 7,000 people county police have turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials since 2008.

Supervisors approved a motion to file a Freedom of Information request with the federal Department of Homeland Security, and move to a lawsuit if necessary.

Chairman Corey Stewart proposed the motion, which passed with a 5-1 vote. John Jenkins, D-Neabsco, cast the dissenting vote and Maureen Caddigan, R-Potomac, and Michael May, R-Occoquan, were absent from the meeting.

Stewart said county officials have tried many times to get information about the whereabouts of arrestees thought to be in the country illegally, but federal officials have not responded to their requests.

“I think that’s a fair thing to get from DHS,” Stewart said at Tuesday’s meeting. “They have refused, over the years, all of our attempts to get that done.”

Tuesday’s motion authorizes the county attorney to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get that information. Before voting, supervisors amended Stewart’s original motion, which also authorized the county attorney to file a lawsuit seeking the information, if the FOIA request is denied.

The county attorney will now need authorization from the board to file such a lawsuit. The supervisors also added a paragraph to the motion, directing Stewart to send a letter to Prince William County’s congressional delegation, seeking their help in the matter.

In casting his dissenting vote, Jenkins said he did not want to spend the county government’s money on filing the information request.

The Virginia county that ignited a national debate by using local police to round up illegal immigrants is planning a new legal maneuver to force the U.S. government to divulge what it did with the more than 7,000 people turned over to deportation authorities.

Corey Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, told The Washington Times that about 10 percent of those it originally turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the last seven years have been re-arrested by county police for new crimes after they were released.

“We know that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Mr. Stewart said, citing examples such as a man who was convicted of killing a Roman Catholic nun in a drunken driving accident while he was awaiting action on possible deportation.

Mr. Stewart plans to take the first step toward possible litigation against federal officials on Tuesday by asking his colleagues on the county board to authorize a Freedom of Information Act request to demand that the Department of Homeland Security divulge how many of the suspected illegal immigrants that county police arrested since 2007 were deported, released or kept in detention.

Mr. Stewart said he expected the FOIA would lead to new litigation given the struggles the county has faced in getting information from the federal government in the past. “It’s been an ongoing struggle with them,” Mr. Stewart said, noting that an earlier lawsuit in 2011 did not result in the release of information.

ICE and Homeland officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday about Mr. Stewart’s plans.

Prince William County, located about 25 miles south of the nation’s capital, is an affluent, fast-growing Washington, D.C., suburb popular with current and retired military personnel and federal workers. Dotted with large suburban homes, shopping malls and successful schools, the community of about 430,000 residents has boasted a significant construction industry over the years that attracted migrant workers. The influx taxed the county’s housing and social services.

The county also has become a key battleground in national and state elections, a sort of bellwether about Virginia’s transition from a politically red to purple state in recent years.

The county made national headlines in 2007 when Mr. Stewart led the effort to enact a new county law authorizing local law enforcement to ask people their immigration status, even if they were not suspected of wrongdoing. The legislation sparked similar efforts around the county, including a controversial 2010 law in Arizona.

County police jumped into action, rounding up hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants in a sweep that troubled advocates for looser immigration laws and drove thousands of immigrants to flee the county. In 2008 the county amended the law so that police could only ask about citizenship status after a person was first arrested for an unrelated criminal offense.

Despite the change, the county has still rounded up more than 7,000 suspected illegals and turned them over to ICE for possible deportation.

The county’s Adult Detention Center also entered into a 287 (G) agreement with ICE, meaning officials from the center are trained by federal immigration authorities, according to County Attorney Angela Lemmon Horan. Detention center officials may put a “detainer” on any inmate, meaning the person is referred to ICE to determine their eligibility to stay in the country.

“A person with a detainer is, in the moment, determined to be there without authorization,” Ms. Lemmon Horan explained. This does not mean the person will ultimately be deported, she added.

ICE has repeatedly declined to give the county specific information on the citizenship status or disposition of any of those detained by county police, Mr. Stewart said.

Mr. Stewart said he worries that released individuals could re-offend, putting citizens in the county at risk.

For instance, prosecutors alleged Carlos Martinelly Montano, a man in Prince William who was awaiting a deportation hearing from ICE, killed a 66-year-old nun and injured two other nuns in a drunken driving incident in Bristow, Virginia.

Mr. Martinelly Montano was only required to check in with ICE once a month as he waited for his hearing. He had a history of reckless driving arrests and citations, including two previous drunken driving offenses, prosecutors alleged.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 for the fatal crash.

Another issue, according to Mr. Stewart, is that if an individual turned over to ICE by the county appears on the streets again, local law enforcement don’t know what ICE’s ultimate ruling was or if the person has even received a decision yet.

“We would expect there’s a certain percentage of those individuals who were allowed to stay in the United States,” Mr. Stewart said.

As a result, police who encounter someone previously sent to ICE face the dilemma of wrongfully harassing someone who was allowed to stay or potentially letting someone reside in the country illegally after already being deported.

Some, like members of the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition, saw the 2007 law, billed as helping strengthen the community, as disruptive.

“It was an oversimplified understanding of community safety,” CAIR Coalition Legal Director Heidi Altman said. “Behind every ICE detainer and every deportation is a family and a community that’s broken apart.”

Ms. Altman also rejected the idea the county might be concerned with whether ICE has detained enough people, saying that the worry enforcement was not harsh enough was “not founded.”

“The immigration enforcement that we have seen in the intervening years has been unprecedented in scope,” she said.

This is the second time the county has sought to pressure DHS for information on people turned over to ICE. In 2011 the county went to federal court with a similar request, but the judge ruled that the county and ICE had not exhausted other options to release the information.

The county has maintained requests for information for years since the initial ruling, demonstrating its efforts to get information without court intervention.

Mr. Stewart said litigation may be the only option left for the county and that he hoped a new suit would end with a different conclusion than the 2011 effort.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VA. — Prince William County today marked the official opening of the Prince William Science Accelerator and formally welcomed its first tenant ISOThrive LLC (ISOThrive), a start-up life sciences company.

Anchored in Innovation Park near George Mason University, the Prince William Science Accelerator is the only public-private commercially available property featuring wet laboratory spaces in Northern Virginia. It is designed as an innovative environment for entrepreneurial research and product development, and works in conjunction with existing industry and universities to add a further key element to the growing life sciences ecosystem in Prince William County.

“This is yet another testimony to Prince William County’s commitment to developing the life sciences industry in our county,” said Corey Stewart, Chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors during the Ceremony.

“We’re pleased to not only welcome ISOThrive, but delighted to provide an opportunity for this new high-tech start-up company, and for the future tenants who will locate here. We look forward to the Accelerator maturing into a full-fledged center of economic growth that will attract high paying jobs to Prince William County,” added Stewart.

“The Commonwealth of Virginia is thrilled to see that the vision for this science accelerator has become a reality with the first tenant taking up residence in this innovative wet lab,” said Ms. Syd Dorsey, Advisor for Small Business Development, Office of the Secretary of Commerce and Trade, Commonwealth of Virginia, speaking at the event.

“Being the first tenant of the Prince William Science Accelerator has already allowed us to establish key research collaboration with George Mason University to further develop the science of supporting a healthy microbiome,” said Jack Oswald, CEO of ISOThrive. “Together we are working on the most important breakthrough in human health of the last 20 years.”

The 9,126 sq. ft. brand new facility houses a total of nine newly built wet laboratory spaces, ranging from 435 sq. ft. to 1,141 sq. ft. in a variety of floor plan layouts and common lab equipment. Each wet lab space is individually secured, has emergency power outlets for critical storage equipment and configured with a front office and access to two conference rooms and a common kitchen/office, receiving area and parking space allocations.

WASHINGTON — The increasing deer population and the trouble it brings is the topic of discussion at a public meeting Monday evening in Prince William County.

“Several of us on the board are very concerned about the spread of Lyme disease. We’re also concerned about the deer population being out of control and causing traffic accidents,” says Prince William County Chairman Corey Stewart.

Stewart says county officials are looking at numerous solutions for controlling the deer problem, and that they need to consider every reasonable option to keep the deer population under control. But he says sterilization won’t be considered.

In February, Fairfax City began sterilizing does as a means of controlling the deer population, but the program costs about $50,000, according to The Washington Post.

Stewart says that the meeting Monday evening at 6:30 p.m., at Chinn Park Regional Library, at 13065 Chinn Park Drive in Woodbridge, will focus on the deer population, Lyme disease and bow hunting.

“We’re always looking for ways, like the rest of the region, to cull the deer population, keep its numbers under control and also to control the spread of Lyme disease and traffic accidents caused by deer.”

He says the spread of Lyme disease is not just a Prince William County problem, but a region-wide one, and says that it’s on the rise.

“It’s a concern not only in Prince William but in Loudoun, Fairfax and other jurisdictions around Washington.”

A gun was used in the violent murder of 21-year-old Glenda Marisol Coca-Romero who was shot and killed while inside a small convenience grocer in Woodbridge on Feb. 21. The victim’s father last week pleaded for information from the public that would lead to his daughter’s killer.

“The murder, which looks like an execution, possibly gang related in Woodbridge, has citizens very concerned,” said Prince William Board of Supervisors Chairman At-large Corey Stewart.

Rise in violent crime?

Stewart today called a press conference in his office in Woodbridge and called for answers from the county’s police department on what’s causing what he called an “uptick” in local crime. No law enforcement members were present at the meeting when Stewart announced he wants Police Chief Stephan Hudson look for trends, or possible commonalities on what’s behind a recent rash of violent crime. Recent incidents like a rape, sexual assault, and a bank robbery in Nokesville were also cited as part of a rise in crime.

“It’s too early to know if there is an underlying cause, or if this is a beginning of a trend, but crime did go up substantially in 2012 and I think it’s going to go up again when the final numbers are ready for calendar 2013, as well,” said Stewart.

He’s basing his concerns on anecdotal information given to him, he told reporters.

Official police statistics for 2013 are due out later this spring. The Prince William County Police Department during their investigation in the in the Coca-Romero case, as well as many others, has developed a reputation of working with the community to solve crimes.

“Even though we have received tips in the case, we continue to ask for the public’s help with any information thy can provide. We have always valued our relationship with the public and their assistance in deterring crime in the community,” said department spokesman Jonathan Perok.

More police officers

Curbing crime in the community will take more police officers – something Prince William County is short on, said Stewart. At the county’s current population Prince William should have 870 police officers on the beat, but the department is 200 short of that number.

County Executive Melissa Peacor’s proposed budget for FY2015 calls for hiring five new police officers next year. That number is half of the number that was hired in previous years, and 80 percent lower than an original staffing plan that called for hiring 25 officers each year.

The staffing plan was scaled back during the recession.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to pass a new budget in April to take effect July 1.

Overall crime in Prince William County remains low, said Perok, who provided the following statistics:

– Crime decreased to 17.04 per 1,000 in 2012. This drop has been steady over the past several years. in 2012, the number of

– Reported property crimes fell by 2% in 2012

– Total number of reported violent crimes increased by 9% in 2012; however, violent crime accounts for only 6% of all crime in Prince William County

– 4% of 2012’s increase in violent crime is attributed to prior year incidents

Jail expansion

Soon, county officials will have to decide if they will spend more than $40 million on a jail expansion at the Prince William / Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center in Manassas. The overcrowded jail needs a renovation of the second and third floors of the jailhouse originally built in 1982, as well as the construction of Phase II of the jail’s central building. Phase I opened in 2008.

Jail officials said they’re 143% overcrowded and have made due by outsourcing, or farming out, inmates from the Prince William jails to other facilities in the state and region.

Stewart said he’s “taking the county staff’s word” on the need for the new jail.

“After you build the jail there are massive ongoing operational costs for the jail, but it’s one of those things – building a jail is not an exciting project, it’s not one of those things you go and brag about, but at the end of the day it’s one of those necessary functions of government,” he said.

- See more at: http://potomaclocal.com/2014/03/11/stewart-fears-crime-rise-calls-police/#sthash.r4SUpOEq.dpuf

WASHINGTON – When the housing bubble burst, Prince William County was hit hard by the resulting foreclosure crisis. That’s because the county had a housing boom right before the housing bust.

But now, things could be turning around.

The housing market is showing a strong comeback, according to a county news release. A preliminary report shows that home values shot up 7.5 percent and commercial real estate shot up 2.5 percent from last year.

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Board of County Supervisors, says in the statement that it’s “great news.” He adds, “It shows what we have been saying all along, that Prince William County is a community people want to live in and businesses want to locate. It shows we have a very strong economy and that we are emerging from the recession far better than most.”

]]>http://www.coreystewart.com/2014/01/12/prince-william-housing-market-rebounds/feed/0Who Needs A Ridehttp://www.coreystewart.com/2013/05/10/who-needs-a-ride/
http://www.coreystewart.com/2013/05/10/who-needs-a-ride/#commentsFri, 10 May 2013 17:17:58 +0000adminhttp://www.coreystewart.com/?p=3460The Convention is a little over a week away. I know several of you are trying to figure out how you are getting to the Convention. Below is where we …]]>The Convention is a little over a week away. I know several of you are trying to figure out how you are getting to the Convention. Below is where we will be picking people up to go to the Convention. Please contact the closest field staffer to you, if you have any questions!

Less than three weeks before the 2013 Virginia Republican Convention, the GOP candidates for lieutenant governor faced one another at Benedictine College Preparatory in Richmond for what may have been a final, 90-minute debate.

Before a crowd of about 200, the two women and five men on Tuesday evening made their case for why they should be on the Republican ticket with gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli in November.

But delegates at the convention face a tough choice, as the candidates mostly agreed with each other, uniting behind the same conservative principles and priorities.

Foremost, they agreed that the office of the lieutenant governor should be given the power to assign bills to committees and that higher education in the commonwealth is in urgent need of reform.

They also shared the view that Gov. Bob McDonnell’s milestone transportation legislation was a mistake.

In order to shake things up and win future elections, Republicans must change the way they deliver their message, all candidates said.

“We have allowed the Obama campaign to define our party,” said Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, wife of former Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-11th, and director of McDonnell’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in Washington.

“As a party, we need to listen and we need to come across as we care,” Davis said. “The Democrats have made people feel that they care about them. That’s what we need to address to them, and sometimes we speak over their heads,” she said.

Peter A. Snyder, a Northern Virginia business executive with no legislative experience, said Republican principles in 2013 are “rock solid” and do not require changes.
Snyder said the GOP must not allow Democrat pundits to water down the party’s values. “We are doing a lousy job at showing people how our conservative principles will make their lives better,” he said.

Chesterfield Republican Stephen H. Martin, who has 19 years of experience in the state Senate, following six years in the House of Delegates, also said that the Republican message is not what needs to change.

“If we are to take a solid majority in the Senate, we’ve got to nominate people who are consistent,” Martin said. “We need to know how to recruit and run a candidate who wins. Nominate someone with a record that is consistent with the message.”

Susan B. Stimpson, chairman of the Stafford Board of County Supervisors in Stafford, urged Republicans to get out of their comfort zone.

“If we don’t start engaging the culture and take out our message to them, things won’t change,” Stimpson said.

E.W. Jackson, the only African-American among the candidates, said Republicans should address minorities.

“We know we have the truth, we know it works,” said Jackson, who unsuccessfully ran against George Allen and others in the U.S. Senate primary last year. “We got to be unafraid to go into these districts. We got to engage people and make sure they know we are not against them, that we don’t hate them, because nothing could be further from the truth.”

Corey A. Stewart, who recently picked up an endorsement by the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation, touted his record as chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors and urged Republicans to “play hardball” to get conservative legislation passed in the Senate.

Stewart said that if Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe wins, all legislation from the conservative House of Delegates “will stop cold in the Senate.”

In that case, a Republican lieutenant governor would have to “outmaneuver” McAuliffe, Stewart said. “I don’t think he’s a very bright guy; I think he’s a clown.”

Also from Prince William, Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, who was recently endorsed by former Congressman Allen West, added a dose of patriotism to the debate.

“When I was young, I would have never imagined standing before you tonight, as your candidate for lieutenant governor,” Lingamfelter said. “America is a great place.”
Lingamfelter said that Republicans needed to engage today’s culture if they want to win. “We need to engage the truth, we need to engage principle,” he said.

Moderator Scott Lee, co-host of the Lee Brothers radio show on WRVA, kept the debate civil and within schedule, allowing the candidates to mingle with the crowd after the 90 minutes were up.

The contest for lieutenant governor will be the one of the most important races of this election season with the outcome potentially determining whether Republicans keep the upper hand in the legislature.

The part-time job can be summed up in two duties: One, to fill the office of the governor in case of vacancy, and two, to preside over the state Senate, which currently is evenly divided: 20 Republicans, 20 Democrats.

With Bill Bolling as lieutenant governor, Republicans have 21 votes, giving them a majority of the chamber. Republicans could lose this momentum if one of the two Democratic candidates wins in November.

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors adopted its fiscal 2014 budget Tuesday, but not before some last-minute negotiations due to an unexpected increase in state funds threatened to derail acarefully-crafted compromise.

Ultimately, supervisors voted, 5-3, to adopt a general fund budget of $961.5 million that restored the Columbus Day holiday for county employees, cut a substance-abuse program in the county jail and maintained funds for new voting machines, among other items.

Candland said in an interview his vote was a “protest” because the county allocates its budget based on what was approved for departments the year before, instead of what was actually spent. He said he hopes to change the process in the coming year.

The budget also funded additional School Resource Officers for security at county middle schools and kept the latest school budget request intact by changing the county’s revenue-sharing agreement.

The county usually automatically allocates 56.75 percent of its total operating budget to schools; that percentage was tweaked upward to 57.23 percent to fulfill the schools’ $888 million request.

Stewart disagreed with the change, saying that the county’s revenue split with the school system had worked well for the last 18 years. “You start changing it, and it’s going to start changing every year going forward,” he has said.

The biggest changes Tuesday revolved around an effort to restore funding for the jail’s substance-abuse treatment program and the Columbus Day holiday for county employees, both of which had been cut in initial negotiations.

Supervisors decided to cut the county maintenance program for buildings by $310,000 and its local subsidy to health department employees by $140,000 to fund the Columbus Day holiday for employees.

Firefighters and police officers, among other county employees, inundated supervisors with emails when the holiday cut was proposed. Paul Hebert, head of the Prince William Professional Firefighters association, which advocates for county fire officials, said that the county has had years of cuts due to the recession.

“This would have been yet another cut to employee benefits and compensation,” he said in an interview.

Supervisors used $426,000 in additional state funds that were identified last week to fund three to four additional police officers instead of funding the jail’s substance-abuse treatment program, called the drug DORM (Drug Offender Rehabilitation Module). That brought the total officers to at least 13 for the year.

Cutting the treatment program was over the opposition of the county’s top elected law enforcement officials, Sheriff Glendell Hill (R) and Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert (D).

Seventy-one percent of those who completed the program were not rearrested within three years, according to program data. Judges often reduce jail sentences if inmates complete the program, Ebert said.

However, supervisors said they would try to find additional funds for the program before the fiscal ‘14 budget takes effect on July 1.

Because Prince William budgets in five-year cycles, this year’s cuts also included cuts beyond 2014. The board cut a requested tactical unit of 14 police officers; additional firefighters; a planned expansion of Minnieville Road; and reduced future staffing for the police department from 15 officers per year to 10 officers per year.

Around 40 Prince William County residents weighed in on the county’s proposed $967.4 million budget Tuesday night at the McCoart administration building, most of them telling the Board of County Supervisors that the county needs more robust programs and not the cuts some supervisors are mulling.

Supervisors have, thus far, been split on both the proposed real-estate tax rate and whether to enhance or cut county programs. But many who showed up Tuesday said that cuts to the blueprint laid out by County Executive Melissa S. Peacor — which provides funding for additional police and firefighters, upgrades school fields, buys voting machines and hires school resource officers to safeguard the county’s middle schools, among other initiatives — would prove harmful.

Supervisors have advertised a real-estate tax rate of $1.196 per $100 of assessed value, which is slightly below Peacor’s recommendation. At that rate, the average household in Prince William would pay $3,647, a 3.59 percent average increase. Per state law, the board can only lower that advertised rate.

Further cuts could hit social service programs and those for the disadvantaged. Several seniors said that the Bluebird bus program, which serves seniors who cannot drive, should be spared. Others said that the county is already lacking in social service programs and should not cut further.

“Many, many single adults still struggle … because they’re living outside with no place to call home,” said Sandra Eichorn, who works for the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a nonprofit mental health organization.

Mary Agee, president and CEO of Northern Virginia Family Service, who attended the hearing, said that area homeless shelters don’t have enough beds for all that need them. Further cuts to those social service programs could harm an already strained system, she said. “Prince William is a really under-resourced community. It has not kept pace with the demand and it’s very discouraging,” she said in an interview.

Board Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large) has offered a plan that would cut social services programs significantly to achieve an average flat real-estate tax bill. Other board members, including Supervisor Frank J. Principi (D-Woodbridge), have wanted to enhance county programs, including hiring more firefighters in the eastern end of the county.

Principi has raised the issue of several fires along Route 1 in which the first responding units were from surrounding localities because the county lacked adequate staffing to send its own units. While the county has most of the equipment necessary to respond to area fires, there often aren’t enough volunteers – who primarily work nights and weekends to supplement career fire crews – to staff them, Principi has said.

Police and firefighters also fought Tuesday for more robust benefits that were cut during the housing recession. As the economy recovers, so should those programs, they said.

Paul Hebert, who heads the Prince William County Professional Firefighters, which advocates for career firefighters, said the county should reinstate its merit pay increases every year. This year, the county budget calls for a 2 percent cost of living adjustment, he said, but no extra pay based on good performance.

“We compete with Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria … and we need to stay competitive with salaries,” Hebert said in an interview.

Perhaps the night’s most impassioned plea came from Jim Livingston, president of the Prince William Education Association. He said that because the school system had planned for Peacor’s proposed budget — schools receive an automatic 56.75 percentshare of county revenue — they have cut more than $5 million from their plan.

“Every school in Prince William County will feel the effect of those reductions,” he said. “Other reductions will be catastrophic.”

Supervisors are expected to adopt a final fiscal 2014 budget April 23.